I John 2:3-11
I John 2:3-11
I John 2:3 The way we know that we are in Christ is through out
productions of the Holy Spirit.
Obedience to Christ is a sign of salvation. James 1:22
Faith produces works. Works do not
produce faith though. John MacArthur states, “True believers
keep His commandments”
(MacArthur, Page 168) “The Greek word translated ‘keep’ in 2:3-4 conveys
the idea of a
watchful, observant obedience. It is not an obedience that is
only of external pressure. It is the
eager obedience one who ‘keeps’ the divine commandments as if they
were something precious to
guard.” (Ibid.) Obedience to Christ is a sign of salvation.
Lack of obedience is a sign that there is
something wrong. John Calvin, “the commonest evil in all ages
has been an empty profession of
God’s name.” (Calvin, Page 245) A.R. Fausset states of true faith
that it is “not faultless
conformity, but hearty acceptance of, and willing subjection to, God’s
whole revealed
will.”(Fausset, Page 631) A Christian who is surrendered to Christ
will be following Him.
Surrenderance and submission to God is necessary to avoid sin James
4:7,8.
Verse 4 Failure to obey Christ is a sign of lack of salvation.
Those who are truly saved cannot
continue in sin. Romans 6:1,2 See previous lessons dealing with
this. Lessons on I John
1:6,8&10. Hypocrites are only fooling themselves. God
is not fooled. By their actions man is
able to discern and man is not fooled. Only the hypocrite is
fooled. Matthew Henry says that
knowledge of God is “vain and superficial” if it does not “sway the
heart to obedience” (Henry,
Page 2444) “A disobedient life is the confutation and shame of pretended
religious knowledge; it
gives the lie to such boasts and pretenses, and shows that there is
neither religion nor honesty in
them.” Be true to thyself. Hypocrites failed to be true
to himself as well as to God.
Verse 5 The one who keeps the word of God has the love of God
perfected or completed in
them. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace....
Love is an out production of the Holy Spirit. I
John 4:7,8. Through the out production of God’s love in our lives
we know that we are saved.
He produces the fruit as we surrender to Him. The perfected love
of God makes us happy and
joyful and brings peace. Psalms 1 tells of the Happy man what
he does and does not do. The love
of God is completed in the Christian that is surrendered to God.
Verse 6 Jesus Christ is our role model. Some people want
to be like Mike, but Christians should
want to be like Christ! John 13:15 Christ is to be our
example. The cliché “What would Jesus
do?” is a good question to ask ourselves in situations.
We need to fashion our lives after Christ.
Matthew Henry, “he who professes to abide in and with Christ,” should,
”aim to resemble his
infallible Master and head, and conform to His course and prescriptions”
(Henry, Page 2444) He
was willing to lay down His life, even so we should be willing to make
sacrifices for Him. Martin
Luther once said, “It is not Christ’s walking on the sea, but His ordinary
walk, we are called to
imitate.” He was a man tempted in all point like as we are, yet
without sin. He has walked a mile
in our shoes. The question is have we walked a mile in His?
Have we ever suffered as He did.
Did we ever resist the temptation to sin so strongly that we sweat
drops of blood? Have we ever
been scourged? Have we ever given our lives? He knows what
we are going through, the
question is do we know what He went through?
Verse 7 Truth does not change. I John 3:11, 4:21, John 15:12,
Matthew 22:39, Deuteronomy
10:19. The truth about loving our neighbor as ourselves has not
changed. Truth is a constant.
The only thing subjective is us, we are to be loyal subjects to Christ.
John 13:35 Since truth is
definite and Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, Jesus is unchangeable.
He is the same
yesterday, today and forever. Jesus is to be our example and
He showed perfect love for us when
He laid down His life so that we might live. If we follow His
example we are going to love our
neighbor as ourselves. Part of loving is walking in the light
as verse 10 mentions. The example of
God’s love proves truth doesn’t change. God loved us before the
foundation of the world. He
put the plan of Salvation in place before He ever made us. He
knew we would choose to sin and
reject Him, yet He chose to save us in spite of what we are.
Now that is true love. Even as
God’s love doesn’t change neither does truth. King David said,
Thy Word O Lord is truth. The
Bible is a constant.
John throughout this book reinforces the theme of love.
Our old nature fights against the
new nature and loving people is definitely not part of the old nature.
One of the first things a new
believer learns about is loving others. We here about it so much
that at times it can get old, but as
Romans 12:1,2 tells us about continual renewal, we must continually
have our love renewed. The
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, etc. We must renew our
walk wit h Christ. Each morning
we need to start with prayer and devotions. We need to commit
ourselves to the Lord anew.
Spiritual renewal is part of our walk with God.
Verse 8 John mentions a new commandment, which is a clarification
of the previous one. The
new one is true both in Christ and in us. Truth is immutable.
John is merely clarifying a point.
The reason he is doing this is because once we are saved the darkness
in past and the true light
now shineth. At Salvation God delivers us from the kingdom of
darkness into the glorious
kingdom of Light. At Salvation we experience a Spiritual dawn.
The darkness is dispelled by the
Light of our Savior Jesus Christ. The knowledge of the Bible
is the way to have a brighter life.
God’s Truth dispels the darkness. John Calvin states (Pg. 249), “Every
man’s faith has its dawn
before it gets to noonday.” He also states that learning God’s
Word is “the way to shut against
the audacity of those who try to corrupt the purity of the Gospel by
their own fictions.” These
false teachers try to as Calvin puts it “completely obscures the true
light.” As the Bible says, they
hold the truth in unrighteousness. There are many who try to
subvert the truth of God’s Word.
Men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are
evil. This is why they try to
obscure the light of God’s Word. The light shows their evil deeds.
As Hebrews 4:13 mentions
the Bible lays all things in the open. His Word makes an open
display of the thoughts and intents
of our hearts. The truth makes evident the deceit the devil tries
to use against us to keep us from
walking with God. The reason many today do not read the Bible
is because it shows them that
they are sinners. People don’t like to think that they are bad,
but we all are without Christ. It is
only through Jesus Christ that any of can be good.
Verse 9 Deals with the sin of unforgiveness. The people
who claim to be saved but hate one
another are only deceiving themselves. Jesus forgave us and even
as He is forgiving, so should
we be forgiving. In Chapter 3 John says that we falsely claim
to love God unless we love our
neighbor. This means when someone does something against us we
do not hold on to the anger.
We don’t let the root of bitterness spring up in us. We do not
hate those who do things against
us. Instead we forgive even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven
us. We need to let the Holy
Spirit produce love in our lives. Unconfessed sin quenches the
Holy Spirit, but a right walk with
God produces the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The fruit
is love, joy, peace. Hate and love
are opposites, so if we have hate in our lives then we do not have
the fruit of the Holy Spirit. IF
we can continue to hate someone without being chastened of God then
we are not saved. A
person who has hatred and bitterness in their lives can claim to be
a Christian, but by their fruits
they are known. Matthew Henry states (Page 2445) of some who say they
are Christians, “yet
they walk in hatred and enmity toward their Christian brethren...therefore
remain in their dark
state, not withstanding their pretend conversion to the Christian religion.”
People who live with
constant hate have only accepted Jesus with the head and not with the
heart. According to John
Calvin (Page 249), “The whole perfection of life is often placed in
love for God.” Our love for
God will be evident in our love for others. Romans 13:8
When we love each other we fulfill the
law. The only way to have true love is to have the Holy Spirit
who produces that love within us.
Unconditional love or agape love can only come from God. Continuance
in hatred is a sign of we
serve. Continuance in love also shows who we serve. Do
we serve the Lord God of Heaven or
we do serve something else?
Verse 10 Those who love their brother and produce the fruit of
the Spirit show through their
love that they are in the light. Our lives demonstrate who we
serve. By allowing the Holy Spirit
to flow in and through us we keep ourselves from falling to temptations.
We do not stumble.
James 4 tells us to be humble and surrender or submit to God
and resist the devil and he will flee
from you. Complete surrenderance to God is the way to have love
produced in our lives and to
avoid falling into sin. Matthew Henry (Page 2445), says that
the person who has Godly love
produced in their life show “his light to be good and genuine.”
He further states that “Hatred is a
sign of spiritual darkness.” As the Bible says ‘by their fruits
ye shall know them’. Our fruits show
who we belong to.
Verse 11 The person who is filled with hate is referred to as someone
who is blind. They can’t
see, because they are in darkness. The Bible refers to unbelievers
as being blind over and over.
The darkness of sin blinds them from the truth. Hatred is blinding.
Many who are filled with
hatred and bitterness never see themselves as the one who may be in
the wrong. It is a sin to hold
on to anger. The Bible tells us ‘do not let the sun go down upon
your wrath’. We are not to hold
on to anger. We are to love and forgive even as Jesus does.
The person full of hatred has no
direction in their lives, because the darkness blinds them from seeing
where they are going. Of
course all paths except Christ lead to the same eternity of hell.
Jesus tells us “I am the Way, the
Truth, and the Life. No man comes unto the Father but by me.”
The path of the cross is the only
path to eternal life. We are to love even as Jesus loved us and
gave Himself for us. If we don’t
we need to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith.
